American Express

American Express and Online Betting

American Express is one of the oldest financial institutes in the world, and has been providing various forms of financial services for over a hundred years. The company became a global force once it started providing credit services, such as the issuing of credit cards. Today, it is one of the largest credit card providers in the United States, with estimated worth of $15 billion. Despite this, American Express is one of the least-used methods of banking in the world, and most betting sites will shy away from using the company for a number of reasons. Finding a site that does accept American Express cards is rare, and only benefits North American citizens.

The History of American Express

Started in 1850, American Express was at first an express shipping company with services exclusive to the state of New York. As shipping routes continued to expand across the country, American Express grew in popularity before offering services on a national level. In 1882, the company decided to move its operations into the financial sector and introduced traveller’s cheques.

It was only in the 1950s when the company first charge card was introduced, which did extremely well in the United States. The range of cards offered by the company continued to grow and today the company offers a type of card suited for just about anyone.

American Express Limitations

Due to the fact that American Express is a private company, they may choose to disallow some bettors from making bets on certain gambling sites. This is the reason many betting sites prefer not to offer American Express as a banking method, as it can become a tedious affair if the company decides to halt transfer processes in order to make investigations. The strict gambling laws of Northern America combined with the private nature of American Express make it one the least popular methods of banking for bettors.

Placing Bets With American Express

This does not make it impossible to use American Express to fund betting accounts. One of the most common uses of American Express cards for mobile sports betting is to deposit funds into an e-wallet, such as Skrill, and then use the Skrill account to transfer the money into the betting website account. This disallows American Express to trace the money directly, and therefore won’t cause them to investigate or freeze any accounts. Additionally, the sites that do allow for the use of American Express will often consider it as cash, and will add very high cash fees to any fund transfers. Therefore, transferring money into an e-wallet account first will often negate any fees that would otherwise be incurred, as well as make the entire betting process quicker and more efficient.

Another option used by many is simply using an American Express card to buy a special card loaded with a certain amount of cash that can then be transferred online with a code. This, like an e-wallet, is a much more efficient way of using money to bet, and allows the bettor to avoid any problems that may arise directly from American Express.